Barrow Fields wayward

Differing goals — if this woman's was survival — seemed ominous to Aureli, but he felt that she would already have expanded on that thought if she'd cared to explain it at all. Perhaps she felt some loyalty to them still, or perhaps the thoughts were painful.

Either way, it seemed it was not for him to know.

She questioned him further, in fact. He thought it was kind of her, though somewhat misguided. As a healer, his own origins were as irrelevant as the life story of her last meal, were they not? Unless she, too, thought to take up the noble path.

"A pack would distract me from my work," he replied, attempting to return her kindness in his tone and his countenance. "I stay with them if there are long-term patients they need me to care for. If there are not, I move on and search for the next place to help people — or to further my studies."

He offered her the ghost of a smile. Smile-flavored Le Croix, if you will. "I have survived all my winters so far. I'll be fine."

But it was kind of her to worry. Part of him — dwarfed by a part that was terribly uncomfortable — appreciated it.